- Tags:
- Burritos / Convenience Stores / FamilyMart / Pizza potato chips / Potato Chips / Sandwiches / Wraps
Related Article
-
Traditional Setsubun Treat Ehomaki Sushi Roll Can Now Be Casually Consumed as Potato Chips
-
7-Eleven Japan’s butter chicken curry is an instant delight
-
7-Eleven Japan serves up fluffy and crunchy chocolate sandwich
-
Melon Bread Ice Cream Is A Dream Come True For Japanese Convenience Stores
-
7-Eleven adds to Japan’s maritozzo craze with monster mouthful of chestnut flavor
-
First Takoyaki, Now Sukiyaki: Pringles Chips Feature Unique Japanese Regional Tastes
Whether you're expecting something greasy or something a bit gourmet, convenience stores in Japan can be a surprising treasure trove of quality snacks for those not expecting higher quality munchies. The wide variety of tasty sandwiches is a particularly welcome treat, perhaps led by exceptional egg sandwiches.
One sandwich that will certainly surprise you is one found in the microwavable sandwich section of convenience store chain FamilyMart. While it's advertised as a sandwich, it's included among a lineup of tortilla wraps that are often billed as burritos--although their thinness may have you questioning that distinction. Regardless of which foodie nomenclature you prefer for these wraps, the particular one that caught our eye for this review is a heavy-hitting doozy that will seem like a siren call to junk food lovers: The Pizza Potato Chip Sandwich!
(c) grape Japan
Reading the wrapper, you may be put off from the "sand" portion of the wrap's name. Fear not, these weren't made by scooping up the ground at the beach, as "sand" is simply the romanization of "sando", what many call sandwich for short in Japanese.
What may come as great or tragic news depending on your preference, the wraps actually do not contain any potato chips. They are instead collaborative release with Japanese potato chip maker Calbee to recreate the flavor of their immensely popular Pizza Potato chip series (which are so popular that a shortage of potatoes following typhoon damage in Hokkaido led to mass panic buying of them) pictured on the label. The beloved chips are notable for their thick ruffled ridges packed with pizza flavor, but also for wet, gooey globs of Emmental & Cheddar cheese that will inevitably cover your fingers. They're often praised for having both the texture and flavor of biting into a melty slice of cheese pizza.
That didn't stop us from getting to the bottom of what a Pizza Potato Chip Sandwich (errr, Sand) tastes like, however! At our local FamilyMart, we picked up one of the potato chip inspired wraps, brought it home, and threw it into the microwave to find out if the idea was a bridge too far for junk food.
(c) grape Japan
Inside the plastic wrapping above, the Pizza Potato Chip Sandwich comes in another miniature paper plate-like encasing, and the wrap itself comes in a crescent shape. One thing we noticed is the fluffy and mochi-like texture the tortilla type wrapping rose into when microwaved, making it a lot thicker than it first appeared to be. This gave it an appropriate pizza dough base used to bread and complement the cheesy stuffing.
(c) grape Japan
And boy is it cheesy! Served piping hot at the recommended microwaved settings, the combination of rich gouda and mozzarella cheese provides a gooey melt-in-your mouth sensation that really is like biting melted cheese off of a hot slice of pizza. What really gives the sandwich it's pizza flavor and right to the Pizza Potato Chip name is a spicy Pizza Potato Chip flavored chili oil sauce that seeps in with each cheesy bit you bite off.
(c) grape Japan
As noted above, one of the things that makes Calbee's Pizza Potato chips stand out is the distinct texture of the chunks of pizza cheese on each chip. In a way, this sandwich recreates that flavor and texture combination by giving you a rush of double cheese first before hitting you with the spicy pizza flavor of the popular chips.
The result is definitely something to be a favorite junky sandwich alternative to fans of Calbee's Pizza Potato chips, and one that comes with even bolder flavor as there's just so much more cheese and the chip flavor comes in the form of a spicy sauce--just maybe count on them for a cheat day and not a daily go-to!